The youth vote in the early voting is not good

[bigdarryl]

At least that's what the pollsters and pundits are saying. WTF is up with these young people this election effects them more than anything.

[knowledgeispwr]

1. Could it be that a lot of young people prefer to vote on Election Day?

I'm part of the "youth vote" and I voted early in NC.

[Honeycombe8]

12. No. I've seen this happen time & time again. The youth vote doesn't show up...

doesn't show up reliably. They're too busy with school and dating and such. They have good intentions, but it takes discipline to make yourself go do something boring and without immediate gratification like voting, so many young people don't show, telling themselves their vote wouldn't matter, anyway.

Happens over and over again. I always get nervous when a politician I want to win says he's counting on the youth vote.

[IsItJustMe]

27. It's a broad brushed statement to say young people won't show. I know many who have. We need to

get out of these stereotypical ways of thinking about things.

[Honeycombe8]

38. You misread my post. Read it again. I said, "youth vote doesn't show up reliably."

That is a factual statement of what has occurred. Not a prediction of what will occur, like "youth vote won't show up."

Historically...the youth vote doesn't show up reliably. That is a fact. Not an opinion. I'm just old enough to remember it without having to look up the stats.

[DCBob]

28. I agree. I think they want to have the full "real" experience of voting on election day.

The "party" effect. :party:

[Luna_C_06]

47. Yeah,

that's kinda what I wanted to do. :blush: Well until my mom starting threating (not in the freeper kind of way, but more of a "I swear if you make me wait in a really long line to vote I'll make you feel guilty for being mean to your poor old mom" kind of way).

LOL, I just noticed that the word "freeper" is in the DU spell check.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Could be they are waiting for election day

But I do wonder how accurate these pundits are. Who do they say is doing the early voting? Working folks? Retirees?

[Minimus]

17. FWIW - my nephew said that for the first time he is excited about an election

and he and his friends are looking forward to voting for Obama on election day. Hopefully that is the sentiment of most of the youth.

[tekisui]

3. Many are first time voters.

And, they procrastinate. They don't realize the value of Early Voting. I think they will be there, for the final tally.

[TexasObserver]

4. Part of being young is putting things off until the last minute, and flaking out half the time then.

I wish it weren't true, but it is.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. They tend to procrastinate. They'll vote on election day,

unless they have already voted by absentee ballot because they're in college out of state. And not all states have early voting.

[crazy_vanilla]

6. Ok, positive vibes people, positive vibes

send those positive vibes out

[CreekDog]

7. could you post some facts before you assume the bloviators are correct?

please.

what was said about young people in 2004 was wrong, but you wouldn't have heard that from the pundits.

consider the source man.

[CoffeeCat]

8. From what I've heard...

...early voting looks very good for Obama. That's what the talking heads
were saying today on "Morning Joe." Obama is way head in Florida, North
Carolina and other early-voting states.

About the youth vote. Most young people vote on election day. I wouldn't worry
just yet about them not showing up. They'll show!

[Minimus]

9. I think many want to vote on election day - that is what my nephew is doing.

As well as many of his college friends. They are making a party out of the process. All going together to the polls and then hanging out after to watch the results.

He lives in TX.

[ChazII]

16. That is the same plan

my son and his friends are following. Morning class than off to vote and get together later in the evening to watch Obama win.

[goclark]

10. If they are in school the weekends should be better

[BobRossi]

11. The draft would change that.

The little sons of republicans would flock to the polls faster than they could text "WTF".

[cliffordu]

31. Yep.

[Hansel]

52. Time for O to make a "draft necessitated by McCain's policies" ad.

[workinclasszero]

13. PLEASE YOUNG DEMS...GOTV!

I'm still believing all the thousands of young people at the Obama rallies won't let us down and will show up in mass on the 4th.

[viat0r]

14. Maybe they are voting HERE ...

http://twitvote.twitmarks.com its ok to vote there but they need to get off their asses and vote in the "REAL" world as well

[Bluenorthwest]

15. My volunteer time

would tend to say that the 'youth' are too busy working this election to the last therd to vote early. They will stand in line and vote in droves. I've never seen so many, so young, doing the volunteer grunt work.

[Thrill]

18. I don't know about other places. But they are showing up here in NC

They are driving our numbers

[Claire Beth]

42. That is SO good to hear! n/t

[elocs]

19. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

The voter turnout for the 2004 election was 55.3%. Voter turnout for the 18-24 age group was 47% which was 11% up from 2000 but 8% less than the turnout for the election as a whole. I'd hardly call that impressive. The 55-74 age groups voted at a 73% rate in 2004. Unless the youth vote can at least match the percent of the election as a whole who voted, I wouldn't call it a great success.

So young people need to put the final and most important action to their words and enthusiasm:
VOTE!

[Starbucks Anarchist]

20. We were the only age group to go for Kerry.

Trust me, we'll be there.

[iamthebandfanman]

21. im now 27 , but from my experiences as a recent 'youth'

which is 18-25...
i hafta say me and my friends kinda made election day an event... we did what we needed to get done in the morning, then we all went together to vote...
then we partied the rest of the day and awaited the results.

kinda turned it into an event instead of just a day to go push a button.

made it really fun. we had a great time.
tho we ended up drinking even more for the wrong reasons after the results were announced in 2004 ;)

[Breeze54]

22. Please stop with the hand wringing.... many of them have exams, papers, etc. & will vote on the 4th!

I'm not worried. They did turn out in 2004 to vote! I think this election will bring an even higher percentage of youth voters! I have 3 sons under 30 years old and they and all their friends are very excited about voting this year!! And my two oldest son's work on a telephone line crew that is mostly guys under 30 and they all threatened to take the day off to vote if their boss had made them leave town to go to the southern part of the state to hang wire, so they can vote! The boss cancelled those plans!! :P My son called me yesterday to tell me about that! :hi:

[Breeze54]

23. dupe... DU hiccup....

:kick:

[democrattotheend]

24. For one thing, a lot of college students vote absentee

And thus are not reflected in exit polls. I don't know if people who send absentee ballots are being counted in the statistics the Secretaries of State are releasing for early voting, so that may be part of it.

[tibbiit]

25. Im an older voter

who had planned all week on going to early voting and something came up.
I show up and vote, i think the young people will too.
shit happens in your daily life and Im still a procrastinator who still never does anything until its the time to do it. I wish I had early voted but oh well.
I think just like me... the youth vote will show up when it is the time.
tib

[grace0418]

26. Most of the younger people in my office (and there are a lot, this job pays shit)

say they really want to vote ON Nov. 4, even if the lines are long.

[sarahdemva]

29. anyone too lazy to vote is disgusting.

[IndianaJones]

30. sense when does youths control the democrat party. nt.

[BlooInBloo]

32. DAMN KIDS - GET *ON* MCCAIN'S LAWN!!!

[GreenPartyVoter]

55. LOL

[sampsonblk]

33. Who knows if they will come out in great numbers or not?

I hope Obama can withstand a big disappointment from younger voters. They are not reliable as a group.

[Colobo]

34. I voted on the first day of early voting here in FLA.

[busymom]

35. This is a problem here too...

I work on a campus and so many of the students were motivated during the primaries. Many (though not all) just don't seem to have the follow-through on this. I don't know why. We had a huge youth turnout here for the primaries, but the ACTUAL election doesn't seem to be generating the same level of excitement.

Of course....I'm encouraging them to VOTE...and not just talk about it.

[QC]

36. They're too busy inserting larger grommets into their nostrils and earlobes

to make it to the early voting locations.

[1Hippiechick]

50. Awwww....didja hafta go there? Self-expression.....

[AuntPatsy]

37. Thats bs, they are terrified of the youth vote...I saw on faux a few days

ago a segment that talked about how schools were busing it's students to the voting precients....faux actually had the gaul to use this story as attempting to attack such for being un american in some way? I swear I could not believe it, they are pushing the memo that the youth are not voting simply because they know they are and in record numbers...

[TheReckoner]

39. They are typically lazy and uninformed

I went to a large, fairly liberal, public university, and many of my friends just didn't care or were too lazy to vote during the 2000 election. A lot of young people talk a good game, but they are too lazy to drag their asses to the polls come election day. I'm not worried about the young folks that have been showing up to rallies and volunteering. Those types will show up and deliver their vote to the good guys. But that's actually a relatively small percentage of young voters. I'll withhold judgment on the current generation of young voters until November 5, but I don't expect a significantly higher turnout than we've seen in the past.

[Goblinmonger]

40. Wow

broadbrush much?

[liberalpragmatist]

51. 2008 does not equal 2000

My friends and I are not representative, as most of us are political junkies. But every poll shows significantly higher interest in this election among young voters than in 2000.

[Name removed]

54. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Goblinmonger]

41. I'm 42, wife is 43 and we wouldn't early vote for the life of us

We LIKE voting on election day. Perhaps kids are like that, too.

[Stagecoach]

43. I just hope

They're prepared for long lines....some young people don't like to wait....and I just hope there's not too many standing in line for 30 to 45 minutes and says, "aww, forget it....I'm not going to wait around....besides Obama's got this won without my vote." Of course if you compound that with too many people thinking like that, that could become a problem.

[busymom]

44. this is kind of what I heard last week...

"Obama has it in the bag" was the most common sentiment. Even better was the "One vote won't matter."

There has to be a push to the end to get these guys out there...I know my elderly neighbors with McCain signs will be at the polls.

[treestar]

57. Young people would be better at waiting than old people

We used to wait ages to get into college football games. You're with your friends and talking and joking and laughing. You're able to put off studying.

It is adults with responsibilities who are less likely to wait. Or old people with medical issues.

[Every Man A King]

45. Thats better than the old people who overwhelmingly

support McSame.

[acmavm]

46. I stood in line for about 2 hrs 45 min yesterday and in all that time I saw

only about 5 people walk away. All young.

And I really wondered about that.

[KathieG]

48. We voted last week here in RED Marion County FL...

there was about a half hour wait and I'd estimate that about 60-70% of the people there were under the age of 40...there were also a lot of AA voters. This is GOOD news for my area!

[1Hippiechick]

49. College crowd - exams.

[liberalpragmatist]

53. Youth turnout may be higher, but the proportion may stay roughly the same

In 2004, youth turnout was WAY higher than in 2000 -- but since turnout increased across the board, the youth share of the total vote was only marginally higher than in 2000.

That may happen this year too.

Keep in mind that young voters have lots of hurdles -- often, they're hurt by weird absentee ballot laws and some states don't allow out-of-state college students to claim residency. Students also move fairly often and change their addresses frequently, which means that many simply forget or don't realize they have to re-register.

[MadBadger]

56. The big thing will be that Obama will win a much larger proportion of the youth vote